New iPhone app to virtually eliminate graffiti

The city’s Arts Commission is hoping graffiti artists will soon reach for the spray can — on their phones.

Graff City, a free iPhone app that became available on the iTunes Store Friday, allows users to snap photos of buildings and surfaces around San Francisco. They then use digital markers of varying brush effects and colors to “tag” them.

Courtesy / McCann Worldgroup

Graffiti artists, phone home.

People can upload their creations onto Facebook or a communal network that lets others view, rate and share virtual tags.

Marketing firm McCann Worldgroup coded the app in response to the commission’s StreetSmARTS program, which commissions murals to discourage vandalism. The city spends an estimated $22 million annually on cleaning up graffiti.

But will kids really like the idea of leaving a digital signature instead of a real one?

Tyra Fennell, the Arts Commission’s arts education program manager, thinks so. She says she’ll be happy if the app cuts down on “30 to 40 percent” of graffiti.

“We’re not going to get all taggers — some taggers are just trying to be vandals and ‘anti-‘,” she said. “We hope we will lessen the tagging rate.”

iPhones aren’t cheap, but Fennell doesn’t think cost will necessarily block participation. “There are bored rich kids that do (graffiti), low-income kids who do it,” she said. “It’s more of a youth thing than a socioeconomic thing.”

To reach out to youth, Fennell plans to spread the word in schools, the StreetSmARTs program and cultural centers around town.